9 rates

7.7

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The game is made with high-end graphics and the sound is great too. There are a lot of things in the game better experienced than read in reviews. Surely, playing Tomb Raider: Underworld will rea...

by Eidos

Release Date: 11/18/2008

Description

As expected the music is in itself a work of art and really needs some sort of quality audio system to do it justice and the graphics and animations, while never quite reaching the cinematic perfection of a film, also live up to expectations.

8.0

The world's most famous fictional archeologist is back with a vengeance this time the survival and exploration action game comes with a new multiplayer mode. The perspective is that of a third person and also has an element of platforming.

The heroine or lead and the character which the player controls is, naturally, Lara Croft, but in this story she is younger than of late as this is something of an origin of version. Here she is a recently graduated archeology student whose studies have led her to seek the lost Kingdom of Yamatai. Through her contact with a family called Nishimura, who claim to be descendants of the ancient inhabitants of the lost kingdom, Lara raises money for an expedition to locate it. Lara's best friend and companion is Samantha Nishimura a representative of the ancient family. Others who accompany her are Dr.James Whitman, Conrad Wroth, Joselyn Reyes, Angus Grimaldi, Jonah Maiava, and Alex.

Whitman is a famous archaeologist who has a rough time lately dealing with divorce and bankruptcy. Roth is an ex Royal Marine who now has turned his survival and fighting skills towards adventure. Grimaldi is a typical blunt Glaswegian who calls spade a spade and a sarcophagus a coffin. Reyes is a female mechanic and a single mother and somewhat skeptical by nature. Maiava is the opposite and quite happy to believe in things not of this world and whose imposing physique belies his placid nature. Last but not least is the nerdy looking Alex who of course is an electronics wizz.

So there we have a good selection of personalities who together should be able to take on almost any challenge that the island of Yamatai and whatever or whoever inhabits it can put their way. And so they set sail on the good ship Endurance to explore Yamatai. But against all advice they make detour into the Dragon's Triangle near Japan and disaster strikes in the form of a violent storm. The main party survives and reaches land on an isolated island where Lara becomes divorced fro the rest of her party and is captured and imprisoned by a cave man who makes her an unwilling guest in the cave he knows as home.

Then things get complicated and to describe it would take as long as the game takes to play. There is an awful lot of content but certainly not a lot of awful content. Let me just say there are many twists and turns, trials and tribulations in which each character plays much the part you would expect them to and some which you would not. Bit if you are not yourself a cave dweller you will get the general idea from other games you may have played.

There are the compulsory arrays of weapons and skills and upgrades but these are just incidental to the game but are, as in all games, form the main source of the action, some original and some not. Lara herself is well endowed, and well armed, and fortunately does not wear too much clothing that might interfere with her weapons skills.

As expected the music is in itself a work of art and really needs some sort of quality audio system to do it justice and the graphics and animations, while never quite reaching the cinematic perfection of a film, also live up to expectations.

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